Samsung and LG a SID: no new panels, but prestigious awards

LG Display and Samsung are showing several OLED panels at SID – but unfortunately no new panels or developments. LGD is showing both its OLED TVs and its flexible OLEDs , and they received the Gold Award for Display Application of the Year for its flexible plastic OLED panel (used in the LG G Flex ) and the Silver Award for Display of the Year for the world’s first curved OLED TV panel. Samsung is also showing OLED displays – but no OLED TV panels. Only small (up to 5.7″) display. I actually expected SDC to show their upcoming 8.4″ and 10.5″ AMOLED panels (that are reportedly adopted in Samsung’s upcoming tablets). Maybe the company doesn’t want to unveil these yet. SDC does show their two flexible AMOLEDs, the 5.7″ (as used in the Galaxy Round ) and the 1.84″ one (as used in the Gear Fit ). The 5.7″ display won the Gold Award for Display of The year. Read more about Samsung and LG a SID: no new panels, but prestigious awards

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Wisechip , the Taiwan-based PMOLED maker, demonstrated its latest display panels and prototypes at the TADF Workshop last week in Fukuoka, Japan. This was an impressive display and a great chance to experience the latest PMOLEDs displays from Wisechip. So first up we have the company’s transparent PMOLED. This is a 4.1″ (106×37.9 mm) segmented T-OLED specifically aimed for automotive HUD applications. The display has 4 colors (red, orange, green and blue) and offers a typical brightness of 800 nits (max is 1,500 nits). According to Wisechip the display will soon hit the market for a specific automotive partner. Read more about Wisechip shows its latest PMOLEDs at the TADF Workshop in Japan

Business Korea reports that LG Display is in talks with Google regarding a large investment in LGD’s OLED facilities towards the development and production of VR displays. BK says the investment will amount of hundreds of billions of Won (equivalent to hundreds of millions USD). LGD VR prototype, March 2017 The report is somewhat confusing, though. On the one had it says that Google is interested in OLED microdisplays, and on the other it says that LG will produce the displays in its existing flexible AMOLED lines, which use a different technology than microdisplays (which are produced on Silicon). Read more about Business Korea says Google aims to invest in LGD to secure VR OLED display capacity

Leading simulation and measurement tool provider Fluxim recently released a new version of its large-area OLED simulation software LAOSS. The new version adds a simulation capability for temperature estimation and cross-coupling the temperature generated by the device operation itself (in the organic stack and the electrodes) and the changes in device operation due to this increased temperature (leading again to different heat generation and so on). LAOSS is a software tool that simulates large area semiconductor devices (OLED and PV), taking into account the voltage drop in the electrodes due to important resistive effects when the size of the device increases. LAOSS facilitates electrode layout optimization and material choice, which can save substantial time and resources. Both OLED lighting panel design and study of AMOLED pixel cross-talk is just a click away. Read more about Fluxim releases a new version of its large-area OLED simulation software, OLED-Info readers get a 20% discount

UBI Research says that as OLED makers are diverting all efforts into flexible OLED production, thin film encapsulation (TFE) is gaining in popularity. Between 2017 and 2021, TFE will be applied to about 70% of all OLED panels in production. The OLED encapsulation equipment market will generate $11 billion in sales. TFE encapsulation started out as a complex technology that required 11 layers and was slow and expensive. Recent advances allowed OLED makers to reduce the number of layers to just 3 and increase productivity and yields and so lower the production costs. Some film OLED makers opted for hybrid encapsulation (which uses a barrier film) but TFE seems to have become the technology of choice. Read more about UBI Research sees PECVD as the in-organic TFE equipment of choice for flexible OLED production

Meizu Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus are high end Android smartphones that sport a small (2-inch) AMOLED display on the back, useful for notifications and selfie images. Both phones also use AMOLED displays on the front – a 5.2″ FHD Super AMOLED for the Pro 7 and a 5.7″ QHD Super AMOLED for the Pro 7 Plus. Other features of the Pro 7 include a dual 12MP sensor camera, a 16Mp selfie camera, Helio X25 chipset (X30 10nm 10-core on the Pro 7 Plus), 4GB of RAM (6GB of the Plus) and 64 GB of storage (128GB on the Plus). Both phones will start shipping in early August 2017. The Pro 7 will cost $430 while the Pro 7 Plus will cost $530.

A few days ago LG Display disclosed its financial results for Q2 2017 and announced a large OLED investment plan to increase capacity for both OLED TVs and small-sized flexible OLEDs . During its investor conference call, LG Display disclosed that it plans to finance some of the capacity increase through strategic partnerships such as customer commitments. In the past months we heard reports that both Apple and Google are in talks with LGD regarding an investment to secure OLED capacity. It seems likely that LGD now verified these reports – but the investments are probably not finalized yet. Read more about LGD confirms it is in talks with strategic partners to fund its aggressive OLED expansion plans

DSCC expects the OLED market to rapidly grow in the near future, as AMOLED production capacity will increase at a CAGR of 41% from 2016 (5.3 million square meters) to 2021 (29.4 million square meters). OLED revenues will reach $21 billion in 2017 (a rise of 46% compared to 2016) and will reach $46 billion in 2021. Smartphones are still the largest OLED application by far – with a 86% market share (revenues) in 2017 and 81% in 2021. The second largest application by revenues are OLED TVs, and other applications follow with a small market share – but one that will increase as supply looses in the future. If we look at shipments, then smartphones acount for 94% of OLED shipments, and the 2nd and 3rd applications are VR headsets and smart watches. OLED TV shipments will reach 6.5 million in 2021 (rising at a CAGR of 49% from 2016 to 2021). Read more about DSCC: OLED revenues to reach $21 billion in 2017, will rise to $46 billion in 2021

In March 2016 the EU launched the PI-SCALE with an aim to create a European-wide pilot line which will enable companies of all sizes to quickly and cost effectively test and scale up their flexible OLED lighting concepts and turn them into market ready products. PI-SCALE members recently managed to produce 10-meter long OLED lighting panels . The PI-SCALE project now launched a flexible OLED design competition, calling out designers to propose OLED lighting and signage applications that highlight the special features of OLED technology: foldable, twistable, bendable, conformable, transparency, large area illumination. Read more about The EU PI-SCALE project launches a flexible OLED lighting design competition

IHS estimates that flexible OLED production capacity is set to increase from 1.5 million square meters to 20.1 million square meters between 2016 and 2020. That’s a compound annual growth rate of 91%! IHS says that almost all new small-sized displays OLED capacity added in the future will be used to produce flexible OLEDs, which will grow the market share of flexible OLEDs for mobile applications from 28% today to 80% by 2020. In the years between 2016 to 2020, OLED producers in China, Korea and Japan will build the equivalent of 46 new flexible AMOLED fabs (each with 30,000 monthly substrates). Read more about IHS: flexible OLED capacity to almost double each year until 2020, leading to potential oversupply